OPM REDI Initiative – Time for the Data and Analytics



I was pleased to see last week’s announcement by the Office of Personnel Management regarding its planned update of the USAJobs.gov website as part of its new workforce initiative, the Recruitment, Engagement, Diversity and Inclusion (“REDI”) Roadmap. It’s part of the federal government’s overall effort to promote diversity and inclusion, and the website will evolve to better reflect and accommodate that. The site could use an overhaul, so this is very welcome.

But what really got me interested during the Roadmap announcement was the planned focus on data. The announcement stated that the REDI Roadmap “is designed to make sure that across government, we are using the latest data-driven expertise, digital tools, and collaborative thinking to continue to build, develop and engage a talented and diverse workforce, now and for years to come.”

Data and analytics to drive decisions — that’s music to our ears at NGA.NET. It’s the foundation of our solutions, because we know that understanding data is the key to making better decisions. I certainly believe that analyzing and acting upon data will help the OPM and its REDI initiative, just as we have seen it help federal agencies improve organizational efficiencies and reduce costs. 

But we’ve also seen it directly affect the hiring process and development of personnel. The federal agencies that have deployed our software have been able to leverage performance information as part of recruitment, onboarding, succession planning, workforce planning and organizational reporting. They’ve been able to improve and quicken hiring of high-quality talent and speed the onboarding process. They’ve also seen retention rates improve and a reduction in so called “bad hires” — those hires that are just not a good fit. Diversity insight and accompanying action is also part of the data analysis process, because that data is captured.

Much of these improvements are driven by reporting and analysis of data. By capturing data at all touch points — from recruitment through hiring through performance and development. Data doesn’t lie. It can show where your recruiting resources are best spent, what characteristics makeup your best employees and managers, which employees are most engaged and the best fit for meeting your succession plans…and a plethora of other insight.

Graham Kerster, a data scientist with USAJobs.gov, pointed out that there is a lot of data it has that has never been analyzed and shared with HR to make data-driven decisions. We applaud the effort, because we know the insight data can deliver.

We’ve been delivering that insight across the federal government for years.



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